Dear Bruce, It’s all a mess. How do I turn it around?

Dear Bruce,

It seems like life offers me one blow after another.  Most of them, if I am honest, have come at my own doing.  I have made a series of mistakes which now have me in a bad place.  I have messed up my family, my relationships with friends, and my life in general.  I want to be different, but I am not sure how do rebuild my life or if I can.

Help!

C

Dear C,

Read the following excerpt from my book, Soul Storm.  Its the story of Steve Jobs and the turnaround at Apple.  I think you will find much value here.  You can do it!

Bruce

read on:  The Apple of His Eye

 Steve Jobs, the legendary CEO of Apple Computers, and college dropout, is a case study in the value of never quitting, never giving in when all appears lost.  The story of Apple is one that demonstrates the value of viewing the original goal, passion, and mission as something to cling to until the very end.  Steve Jobs is a huge figure in the world of computers and wealth building.  He co-founded Apple computer, gave the world its first PC-like machine in 1976, was a multi-millionaire before the age of thirty, and was the prime mover for Apple’s early and rapid success.  Bored, burned out, or just looking for something else to do, Jobs walked away from his company.  Upon Job’s departure from the company in the mid-eighties, Apple began to flounder in the absence of its leader.  For many years the health of this great company was deteriorating.  With market share deteriorating, profits falling, on the verge of terminal illness, and with all the experts pronouncing impending doom, Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 as the “interim CEO”.  In 2000 he officially took the helm as the point man and CEO of this dying company.  When nearly everyone else had given up hope, Steve Jobs found inspiration in the initial passion and mission that birthed this once great company and he committed himself to a major rebuilding effort. 

 His first step toward recovering what had been lost, and in moving forward better than ever, was to give the company a makeover.  Apple, by design, Jobs was convinced, had to be a company of fresh vision and forward thinking.  Jobs was determined to demonstrate that this dying behemoth could and would lead the industry once again.  He started the makeover by totally redesigning the company and its products from the ground up.  The image, marketing, and design would have to be new, fresh, out of the box, and beyond anything the industry had ever seen.  The “Think Differently” marketing campaign set the tone for Apple’s new future.  In the days following his return, and still today, the compelling artistry, design, and user-friendliness have seemingly everyone craving Apple products once again.  The new highly stylized computers, the iPOD, the new Nano, iTunes, and the software have developed a cult like following.  Though I am cranking this book out on a windows based laptop, in my home office you will find one fantastic kick butt Apple desktop with a ridiculously large Apple cinema screen!  Somewhere in the house are more than a couple Apple iPods.  This company’s products are way cool, way fresh, and very alluring.  The attraction is back at Apple, market share in increasing, profits are climbing, and our culture is eating up its products like candy.  The turnaround is happening.  The company is better than ever.  The future looks bright.

 How does this kind of thing take place?  What is it that enables a once faltering and sputtering entity to come back to life in such a manner?  We have heard it quoted many times, “Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, give up. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.“  These often quoted words of Winston Churchill are use by speakers, writers, and self-help gurus around the world regularly.  What many of us are unaware of, however, is the occasion, context and body of the entire speech.  Context means everything if the true import of a given quote is to really speak its truth.  The rousing speech, given by Churchill amidst the battles raging in World War II, is a testament to our call to persevere and press through the darkest of days.  The speech, given to students at the Harrow School conveys strength, character, poise, and resolve to fight for that which one considers to be of ultimate value.  Those words, in there entirety, are here for our consideration and have many parallels to the issues addressed in this book.  Britain, the apple of Winston Churchill’s eye was worth fighting for even amidst his country’s darkest days.  His words follow,

 Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master’s kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs.

The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world–ups and downs, misfortunes– but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home?

Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!

But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months - if it takes years - they do it.

Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must “…meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same.”  You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.  But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period–I am addressing myself to the School–surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson: Never give in. Never give in.

Never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.  Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honor, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: “Not less we praise in darker days.” I have obtained the Head Master’s permission to alter darker to sterner. “Not less we praise in sterner days.” Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days–the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race. 

 And so, the call to fight for that which is important to us must be heard loud and clear.  Rather than giving in amidst life’s most desperate moments and pronouncing a death sentence upon all of our dreams, we must passionately pursue that which is so precious to us.  Never give up, never give in, never quite pursuing your God given passion.  No matter where you are in the journey, at the top or beneath the rubble, turn you gaze upwardly, think differently, think with the mind of Christ, and go for it.  Attempt the ridiculous for good of others as God inspires you.  Pour the rubber into the waffle iron, cut the mold, build the shoe, lace it up, and go for it.  Just do it.  If you think your idea, your dream, your passion to rebuild your life is just too hard or too unthinkable, read the story of Bill Bowerman and the creation of the first Nike tennis shoe. 

 God tells us we are the apple of his eye.  He assures us of His love for us, and He has told us over and over again that He is about the business of rebuilding.  His ways are not our ways, His thinking is outside the box, and life looks much different from His perspective.  When all around may appear to be death and destruction, through God’s eyes the view is much better.  From the grave He brings new life, fresh dreams, and bright futures.  In His hands, devastation and hopelessness are transformed into life and that abundantly.  Pick up a hammer, its time to start rebuilding!

 Bruce

optimuslife.org

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